Note 293 — SECTION XIX: CHAPTER V
Reading edition
Charles Napier in his diary [Life, i. p. 132] and Tomkinson [p. 31] accuse Craufurd of reckless haste. Harry Smith, in his autobiography [i. p. 22], holds that the Rifles could have got up in time to force the square to surrender. Leach [p. 142] makes much the same comment. All these were eye-witnesses. Yet it would have taken some time to bring up the guns or the infantry, and the French were near broken ground, over which they might have escaped, if not immediately assailed. See also Craufurd’s Life by his grandson, pp. 114-16.